Methods

We help you challenge the status quo, together

For 25 years, the Reos Partners team have been practicing a rigorous set of methods that help people make progress on complex, stuck challenges. Our approach both opens and creates paths to crucial systemic transformations. The starting point is a diverse coalition that wants to transform the status quo, together.

We take an unconventional approach to systemic change

We help teams of diverse leaders from across a whole system—be it an organisation, a sector, or a society—work together to unlock the potential of their system. With our support, these teams create three types of outcomes:

Collaborative alliances: stakeholders shift from being unwilling or unable to work together, to building their capacity to work together across differences.

Systemic insights: stakeholders shift from seeing and understanding only part of what is going on, to broadening and deepening their understanding of what is happening and could happen.

Transformative actions: stakeholders shift from acting in a way that keep things the way they are, to acting—separately and together—to change what is happening.

1. Starting point

A diverse coalition of leaders thinks that their situation
is unacceptable or unsustainable and that it
cannot be transformed unilaterally, directly, or immediately

Diversity is the solution, not the problem

All of our projects bring together stakeholders from across a whole system. Politicians, businesspeople, community leaders, activists, police, journalists, artists, researchers, clergy, trade unionists, young people . . . Diversity may feel like the problem, but it is at the heart of problem solving. Progress results from skilfully engaging people with different perspectives and interests to collaborate on shared concerns.

Work at multiple scales

Reos Partners works at multiple scales: events of a few days, processes of several months, and platforms that operate for years. A single event can spark new relationships and insights, while a long-term platform can enable new capacities and initiatives—and ultimately, systemic transformation.

Proven ways to collaborate and learn

Reos Partners takes a custom approach to every situation. But we often employ a combination of two tested approaches: transformative scenarios processes and social labs. We also offer training and coaching to build the capacities and skills that enable enduring systems change.

Sometimes what stakeholders need to do is to meet and talk in a structured and creative way, in order to understand better what is happening, what is possible, and what they can do about it. In these cases we facilitate a transformative scenarios process, through which participants create collaborative alliances and systemic insights. We have led such processes to address issues related to democracy, drugs, education, food, forestry, governance, health, land, peace, and security.